Everything Must Burn
by BarbaraChilde
Summary: Angsty one shot where things are said


**Angsty one shot where things are said.**

**Should be canon but I don't think the writers have the guts.**

**I own none of it.**

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Anger. It's like every other emotion has been replaced.

Writing still gives him some semblance of control. It doesn't always come easy, but once it comes it's fast and brutal. So brutal that at times feels like he's possessed by something malevolent. And other times by something so old and tired that it grips him in its Rip Van Winkle beard and everything is so jaded that he could shatter. He writes until he thinks he's empty, but it just won't let up. It keeps bubbling to the surface in a witch's brew of lust and spite and bitterness until he goes to bed to sleep and dream until the anger wakes him and drives him to his keyboard once more. It's a cycle that's been going on for so long he almost can't recall anything else. But he remembers everything, too well for his own comfort and perhaps too well for anyone else's.

He never reads what he's written. Doesn't revisit or edit or even think on it. It could be an endless string of meaninglessness for all he knows. Like he's a character in a Steven King novel forever condemned to write the same thing over and over again in an insane circle of horror.

The Upper East Side must burn

The Upper East Side must burn

The Upper East Side must burn

The words all mean the same thing in the end.

Dan doesn't want to go to Prada. He doesn't want to make small talk about Italy in the summer and what he's writing and how beautiful the weather's been. But Rufus' pleas cut through his apathy and make him think for once about someone else. His father's path to reconciliation with his own particular Upper East Side bitch is so fraught it deserves it's own novel. The only thing that stops him telling him to give it up and stop being such a stupid fucking doormat is that Rufus will just continue to mope around the loft until it turns into some hellish den of Humphreyesque misery.

And so he goes. He shaves and he gets a haircut. He wants to be invulnerable to pity. He even forces himself to go shopping, his more critical eye not liking the way the gaping collar on his shirt makes him look boyish. Skinny and defenceless; he needs to be impenetrable?

He hopes it's just his father and Lily, but Prada doesn't know the meaning of a small intimate family meal and he suspects the entire Upper East Side circus freak show will be on display. He doesn't want the curious glances from strangers who know almost every one of his secrets and he doesn't even know their name. He feels like a fool. They all saw his love emblazoned like a banner, his most intimate moments sliced up and delivered in short, cruel blasts. It shames him; he was playing for keeps while everyone else was just playing games.

The elevator doors are closing when he gets to the lobby. He almost waits but now he's decided to go, he just wants to get there as fast as he can and claim his own blank space of pretence. The door stalls at his gesture and he steps blindly in, finger ready to jab at his destination.

He's not alone though. She's there before him, her mouth a small round circle of astonishment. But before he can force the door open again and leave, the elevator starts to move. He doesn't want to look at her. He's seen her once or twice since the summer ended but it's always been in the company of others. When it's easy to pretend that there's a hole in the ether where that person used to be. But the last time he stood in this spot, in this very elevator, there had never been anyone more real than the person before him now.

He makes himself look. Starting at her toes and past her filigreed stockings and the skirt brushing the curve of her thigh. Over the studied perfection of her gown and the diamonds gracing her neck. To her eyes that regard him with such a melancholy reproach. "You look well." There's an element of surprise in her voice.

"Cut it with the crap, Blair. I'm not interested in anything you have to say."

Her voice is small and white teeth chew at her bottom lip. "You've made that abundantly clear. I tried to talk to you."

Dan finds his self-control is less than he gave himself credit for and can't help the words that start to spill. "What did you think? That I was going to just lie down at your feet and commiserate with you about your all-consuming passion for Chuck and how nothing can compare to your love? You think you're from a Bronte novel, Blair, but you're really just Mills and fucking Boon."

She blinks at his words but doesn't meet his eye. She knows he means to be vicious. "I know about Serena."

"And I know about Chuck. Woop de doo."

"He needed me. He needs me."

"No one needs you, Blair. But once I wanted you."

He can see a tear start to quiver in her eye and it doesn't make him feel protective or sympathetic. "I couldn't help it, Dan. It's fate, I tried to tell you that."

"Not soon enough. And I didn't want to hear it anyway. I still don't."

Her finger finds the emergency stop button before the elevator can reach the swiftly approaching penthouse and everything becomes still. She puts some steel into her voice "I don't need you on my mountain of regrets, Dan. I didn't want to hurt you."

"Your regrets, huh. You didn't want to hurt me but you felt compelled to? Let me fall in love with you and then lie and lie and lie. I don't know how you sleep at night."

"You cheated on me! It goes both ways, Humphrey."

"By your logic you and I must actually still be together since we never had a chance to break up at all. Yes, I had sex with Serena before we had broken up." Blair's face flinches. "After you had already chosen someone else. Surely you could have told me first?"

"I tried to call you…"

He cuts her off. "I know why you didn't want to see me in person, don't give me that shit, Blair. You didn't want to hear what I'm about to tell you." He takes a step towards her to look her in the eye, trying to decipher some shred of truth in her tangled mess of deceit. "You said your heart belonged to me. When I was trying to distance myself from you, instead of respecting that, you actively stalked me. But all the time you were secretly pining for Chuck? So yes, that tells me that you actively went out of your way to hurt me. "

Dan swings around in the elevator, feeling claustrophobic in the close walls but he can't stop the vitriol spewing from his mouth. He's yelling now. "I had wanted you for so long and deep down you knew it, you always knew it. So you use me as an emotional crutch and I, like the fucking idiot I am, let you do it because I was in love with an imaginary girl who I fooled myself into believing was worth it all, that her complexities were worth trying to figure out. All those things about you that I loved are a lie. You're not sensitive. You're not intuitive. You're a bitch that plays with other people's emotions like you're so far above them that your merest whimsy is more than anything they might need."

He knows he should stop. Blair is white, her rouge standing out garishly on her cheeks. But he can't stop venting everything that keeps rotating in his mind. "You know what, Blair, I actually feel most sorry for Chuck. I thought you played me like I was a toy. But he's catnip to you; you can't let the man alone. You can't bear it that he might get over you. What is it? As soon as someone might be able to move on, you'll do anything in your power to suck them back in? You don't actually want people, you only want what you haven't got. You really need to be by yourself for a long time."

Her shock is wearing off and he watches her mouth twist into a curve of disdain. "I don't need your judgement, Dan. I did what my heart told me to do."

"Well your heart tells you to do some pretty fucking stupid things. You consider yourself smart? You've got the emotional intelligence of a spoiled 3 year old."

She is angry now too. It smoulders in her stance and flashes in her eyes. "I'm sorry I hurt you but I'm not sorry that you weren't enough for me. You're just bitter."

"Oh yes, I am bitter and for more than that. I need to know, Blair. The God story is bullshit. Why the fuck didn't you let Chuck help you when he wanted to? Your heart was telling you not to? God only knows what goes on in that sadistic little mind of yours."

The knuckles of her hand are taut with tension, clutching her handbag to her chest. "Why are you even standing here if I'm such a monster?"

"You're the one who pressed the emergency stop button, Blair. But you're right, what am I doing in this building? Why the fuck would I or my father want to have anything to do with any of you repre-fucking-hensible people?" He put his hand out to press the start button and then the lobby button repeatedly until the car eventually begins to move. "I just want to get the fuck out of here!" He turns to face the door, watching the floors count down, tapping his fingers on the cold metal, bursting through the doors before they can fully open, before he can say the next thing that comes to mind.

Dan gets drunk when he gets home. It seems like an appropriate occasion to put a serious dent his father's 18-year-old whiskey. He's sitting at his computer again in just his pants and his unbuttoned shirt with half the bottle put away. But instead of writing, he finally reads the ugly words from his summer in Italy, when everything was so raw and dark he couldn't even feel his way.

There's a furious banging at his door. He knows whom it is, so he stays seated, waiting for the noise to stop and for the unwelcome feet to walk away. Instead the door opens and her tight blank face appears.

He stands, staggering a little. "Did my words not make sense to you, Blair? Do I really need to spell it out? I don't want to look at you, talk to you, even acknowledge your existence. Is that clear enough?"

"Yes, Dan. But now I need to tell you something."

"There is nothing more to be said, Blair. Please just go away."

She's not leaving. Instead she walks into the loft like she owns it. Placing her bag and her coat on his kitchen bench and turning to face him, arms crossed defensively. "You think you're so morally superior to us all. But you used Serena to hurt me. You knew she still loved you but you did it anyway. And in doing that you destroyed any chance to be the injured party you so love imagining you are."

"Don't pretend you even care, Blair. Run back to Chuck, I think I can hear him calling you."

She steps so close he can smell her beneath the haze of perfume and gin. "You knew what you were doing. You're only angry because you lost. Admit it, you loved getting one over Chuck more than you ever loved me."

"How fucking dare you? I wanted to be yours. You had me so wrapped around your finger, all you had to do was flutter those demon eyes of yours and I'd come running." He refuses to step back, it would be like an admission of defeat, even though the way she invades his body space makes him so hyper aware of how she felt in his arms, how she would yield to him.

"Of course you came running, you can't help yourself. You're just desperate to be an elite lap dog like your father."

His lips twist in a parody of humour. "You could be right. Maybe once I was. But even the most loyal dog can only take so many kicks."

She slaps him then. And again. He tries to grab her hands to stop the blows but he only manages one. The other grips his lapel close, pulling his face closer to hers. "How long are you going to wallow in self pity? You're ridiculous, Humphrey. You're exactly like us. Even worse than us, we're here by right, you just clawed your way in."

He tries to pull away but she's not having it, and between her firm grip and the rug tangling around his feet and at least a little part of the whisky, he trips and tumbles heavily to the floor. Blair falls with him, landing across him in a haunting déjà vu, her body pressed intimately against him. She doesn't flinch away though, instead she places a hand on the floor each side of his head and looks down at him. "You pretend you're above it, but you play the game better than anyone."

Her kiss savagely invades his mouth but he rips his head away before his drunken senses can start to swim with hers. "Are you fucking kidding me? Everything I said is true, you only want things that aren't yours to have."

"Fuck you, Daniel Humphrey." And she kisses him again, sliding her hands into his hair and closing her fists so that when he tries to tug his head away he can feel strands tearing away from his scalp. "If I'm a sadist, then you're a masochist. You want this."

He can't tell if the white heat that flames through him is rage or lust but the hands that slide down the front of his trousers make the differentiation irrelevant. "Fuck you too, Blair Waldorf. I don't want you anymore." But he doesn't wrench himself away; instead his fingers slide to her hips, biting into the soft give of her skin. Her tongue meets his halfway as he turns her onto her back, the pressure of his pelvis trapping her hands between them.

He'd always been wary of her birdlike bones and delicate skin but now he knows them for the façade they are, like the proverbial velvet glove. And if she wants mercilessness, she's picked the moment he can give it to her. His hips roll into hers, thighs spreading and dress sliding up so he can feel her garters against his hands. She tastes different but her skin feels the same and it makes him wonder which one is real.

She pulls a hand free, sliding it up his torso and into his hair again, grasping painfully at the curls that remain. The other slides lower and envelops the base of his penis and the sharp tug makes him pull back momentarily, allowing her to force him over again.  
"I never wanted you." Her fingers slide back up his cock to unfasten his trousers and she tugs at his hair so his mouth meets her own. The rucked up rug beneath him digs into his spine but the change of position means he can tear at the neck of her delicate neckline and feel the silk give way in his hands. She gasps against his mouth, he can hear the outrage. Her hand just continues lower, pushing his trousers down his thighs. Wrapping her hand around him with her persistent fingers.

"So you've told me." It's more of a gasp. The bustier won't come undone so he grips the cup and peels it down to her waist, freeing her breasts so he can take her nipple between his teeth and tug. "It doesn't explain what you're doing here." His words muffle against her skin. He'd forgotten how he could almost span her waist with his hands.

She guides the head of his penis over her damp crotch. Her nipple pulls against his mouth as she sits back and lowers herself onto him in one smooth motion, pulling her panties aside with determined fingers. "I don't lose, Humphrey." She almost spits the words at him.

There was no way in a cold hell that he will just lie there and allow her to ride him like he's some prize pony. Despite the voluptuous movements of her hips and her swollen lips and her hair brushing against his face. His hands grasp her buttocks holding her firmly against him, and she pants and tries to pull back even though he won't let go. Instead he rolls himself up and forward using his greater strength against her wiles. He didn't think cruelty was in his nature. It never used to be. But now he hardly knows himself anymore. "You lose at everything, Blair. Everything you lay your hands on you destroy." She tries to push him back down but he withdraws from her to tuck his legs beneath him, gaining some leverage. "No one more than yourself." Blair's legs wrap around his hips, nails clawing his shoulders red raw, and his fingers slide between her legs, finding her clitoris slick and hot and swollen. Her eyelids flutter as he starts to thrust in earnest and she folds beneath him, thighs gripping his hips as she rises to meet him.

She shifts her hips so the angle changes and he slides so deep his breath starts to rasp in his throat and his balls throb. The moan she gives is more a sob. She closes her eyes then, allowing him to clasp her hands in his and trap them above her head. His own climax building as she tenses and quivers against him but the orgasm still takes him by surprise in its intensity.

The anger leaves him in a rush, leaving him feeling so empty and so old his arms quiver with palsy. He tells himself that he doesn't want to keep touching her, withdrawing like she's burning him and collapsing back on the floor. It takes more than a moment to regain enough breath to speak. "Is this meant to be closure?"

Her face is flushed, breath coming fast. "It's not meant to be anything. It's nothing. It was always nothing."

He tries to find the words that would hurt her most. "You once said to me that you wondered how anyone but Chuck could love you after what you had become, like you didn't want to be that person. And I thought there had to be more to you than that for you to at least have that insight. I even think that I tried to love you just a little bit after that to prove you wrong. But you were right, you are that person, I don't think you can even help yourself."

She stands then, he watches her awkward legs quivering as she tries to wrap her ruined dress around her. "I'm leaving."

His eyes close, they've seen enough. "You don't know how happy those words make me." And then he waits, listening to the sounds of her collecting her things and the long pause before the door shuts behind her.

He lays there for long moments, examining himself, prodding the tender spots inside that he'd been worrying for so long. But for once they don't hurt at his touch. The fire that had been burning in his belly is cold. The words that had poisoned him have just vanished and the sense of freedom is like a benediction. It is like all the strings that had held him have been cut. For so long he'd tied himself to this city, so involved with it's people, like a bad habit he couldn't kick. His options crowd into his head all vying for validation. He could afford to go to Yale or Dartmouth now; he could go back to Rome and see more than just the ceiling of his hotel room and the bitter words on his laptop. He could go to London and stay with Jenny, transfer to a university there and forget that New York even existed.  
Dan rolls himself up and off the floor and folds himself into his sofa, closing his eyes against the dawn that sends rosy fingers into the morning sky.


End file.
